Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/February 19

On this day in 1971 the first warrant to search computer storage is issued in San Jose, California, for a trade secret theft investigation. It kicked off a new era of digital forensics and led to people protecting local personal data with (“warrant-proof”) encryption. The effectiveness of cryptography against comprehensive state surveillance capabilities is the basis of crypto-anarchism. For others it is a flaw in the desired unrestricted access of investigative authorities and intelligence agencies. As a result, there are regular calls for bans on strong encryption, justified by polemical reference to either terror or child pornography, and bigger waves of criminalization of the use of strong cryptography that have become known as the Crypto Wars. They make defending personal use of strong encryption an ongoing necessity. Even the strongest advocates of freedom of information make an exception for individual privacy, which is another important foundation for the free development of one’s personality.